


A Summer Storm, Ephemeral

by alpha_exodus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Community: hp_drizzle, Domestic Violence, F/M, First Time, HP Drizzle Fest 2019, Time Turner (Harry Potter), Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-13 16:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_exodus/pseuds/alpha_exodus
Summary: In the middle of summer 1943, Tom meets a girl.





	A Summer Storm, Ephemeral

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to S for enthusiastically agreeing to beta this despite (or because of?) the ship! I had fun writing this despite the dubious morality inherent.
> 
> Re: the Underage tags: based on what I could find of HP lore, Tom is 16 here (and Hermione is 17).
> 
> I have put a further description of the Domestic Violence warning scene at the bottom for those who may want to know before reading.

It’s raining the first day he sees her—storming really, the kind of summer thunderstorm you can smell long before the first raindrop ever hits.

Tom is sitting in the orphanage’s pitiful excuse for a library. Not that he reads from the sparse selection of books on the shelves—none of them are about magic, and he abhors Muggle fiction. He only goes here because no one else dares step foot in here when Tom is present, not since one of the other older children made the mistake of interrupting him in the midst of Tom’s studies earlier this summer. He’d taken books from the Hogwarts library—ones full of dark magic, so he could learn further about Horcruxes, as well as historical texts to discover more of his heritage. When the kid cut him off mid-paragraph to ask if Tom could pass him ‘just that book over there, thanks, mate,’ Tom nearly hexed him. He would have, if it wasn’t for that damned underage Trace.

But the Trace doesn’t stop him from threatening people.

He thinks with mirth of the fear on the kid’s face as he’d run from the room.

On this particular day, Tom has grown rather tired of reading, given that’s all he’s been able to do for half the bloody summer. So he happens to be sitting there in the library, staring idly out the window when she appears.

He squints through the rain insistently splattering against the window as a figure slowly appears in the distance, crossing the field behind the orphanage and moving towards him. It’s a woman, he thinks, and that would be mildly unremarkable—except she’s wearing Wizarding robes.

Excitement spikes in his chest, and he sits up, alert. She’s here for him, she _must_ be, even though he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her in his life. It doesn’t matter. She’s _magical_, and his thirst for the taste of magic is always strongest when he’s stuck here in this bloody place.

He sneaks quickly out of the library, checking to make sure none of the minders are around before stepping out the creaky old front door of the orphanage. In his haste he’s forgotten his umbrella, which is a damn shame, because as soon as he walks outside he’s soaked through to his underclothes almost immediately. He curses the Trace again. What he would do for a bloody Impervius right now.

No matter. He’ll dry off later.

Attempting to erase the eagerness from his face, he settles for a vaguely uninterested expression as he approaches the woman, who is now only several hundred feet away. In the back of his mind, it occurs to him that she could be dangerous. Ah well. He’ll use magic to defend himself if he has to.

He’s the most powerful wizard of his age, after all—or so everyone always says, he thinks smugly. He’s sure he can take her.

“Hullo,” she calls out to him many paces away, her voice nearly getting lost under the relentless sound of the rain.

“Hullo,” he responds loudly. Her features are slowly coming into focus. She’s completely dry of course—definitely a witch then, as it’s obvious _she’s_ cast an Impervius, of which he’s jealous considering water is already seeping through to his socks. Her face isn’t terribly remarkable, but she’s not ugly either, with soft eyes and messy, brown curls that bounce as she walks. She doesn’t look that much older than he, if at all. “What business do you have here?” he asks as she grows closer.

“Are you Tom?” she asks instead of answering his question, stopping a few feet away from him.

There’s no point in lying—obviously she knows who he is. “Yes,” he says. “And you are?”

She has an odd expression on her face, one he can’t read right away. Upon further scrutiny, he perceives both fear and excitement—but both are far overshadowed by a pervading sense of exhaustion.

He wonders what has happened in her life, to make her so tired. Not that he cares, of course. But it might be useful to know later on.

She seems to hesitate at his question. But then she holds out her hand. “I’m Hermione Granger,” she says. “Would you like to come with me?”

xXx

He follows because he has nothing better to do, he tells himself. It’s partly true. But magic is to him as honey is to flies, and honestly anything to get out of the damned orphanage will do. He’s glad the minders don’t much care where the older children go, as long as they’re back by nightfall. He simply avoids the adults when leaving because they’re nosy as fuck and he doesn’t feel like answering all of their inane questions.

She takes him to a small pub in town. Muggle, it looks like, and she buys both of them a drink with Muggle money. He wonders if she’s a Mudblood. Granger isn’t a surname he recognizes, though he supposes she could be a half-blood.

How disgraceful, that he could theoretically be hanging out with a Mudblood at this very moment. But she spelled him dry as soon as they were far enough from the orphanage that it wouldn’t be likely to activate his Trace, and he’s grateful enough for the favor that he’ll allow it. For now.

“How are you, Tom?” she asks as they sit down.

He stares at her, wondering why she cares, considering they definitely haven’t met before now. Still, he must maintain a façade of politeness until he figures out what she’s _really _here for, so he schools his expression into one he knows that others find charming. “I’m fine,” he says. But then he cuts to the chase. “So who are you, really, and why have you come to see me?”

She sighs, taking a sip of her drink—it’s not alcoholic, but then again neither is Tom’s. He wonders if she’s not of age in the Muggle world yet, or if she simply doesn’t want to let her guard down. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you just yet,” she says, and that alone makes him want to shake it out of her. He won’t, of course. She’s the only taste of magic he’s had in months. He can wait.

“Very well,” he says, staring down at the table, which is clean but somehow still vaguely sticky—how disgusting.

She’ll talk eventually. All he needs to do is wait.

“You have on a Trace on you, right?” she says, though she sounds unsure, which of course means she’s trying to get information from him.

He doesn’t see what harm telling her would bring, so he nods slowly. “Yes,” he says. “I suppose you don’t?”

“No,” she says, and then oddly, she smiles at him. “Next time I’ll take you farther away from here. Then you can do magic.”

Tom has no idea who this woman is, but the idea of being allowed magic again entices him so strongly his very bones are tingling. “All right,” he says, fighting to keep the over-eagerness out of his smile. “I’d like that.”

xXx

She visits again the very next day, leaving Tom little to no time to wonder about her, the strange woman who sat with him talking for hours about nothing of substance in the pub, who brought him back to the orphanage later, who promised earnestly to see him soon.

“How the hell did you get ahold of one of _those_?” he asks her, as they emerge from the thin strip of trees that separates the orphanage field from the rest of town and he sees that she has a _car_, parked there on the side of the road. Only the well-to-do drive them nowadays, what with the pointless Muggle war still going on.

She shrugs. “I have my ways,” she says cryptically, which makes him wonder if she’s done something underhanded to get it.

Interesting. Begrudgingly, he eyes her with a newfound sense of respect.

She could still be a Mudblood. At least she’s a resourceful one.

“Where are we going?” he asks then, climbing into the car.

“Away,” she says simply, and brings him to a small Wizarding village this time, one he’s never heard of. Still, he delights in the ability to be able to pull out his wand, immediately casting a charm to screen some of the awful, bright summer sun from his skin.

“Will you at least tell me where you’re from?” he asks later, sitting in another pub after ducking into the few shops dotted around the main road. He has a Butterbeer in front of him, the depth of flavor much preferred rather than the too-sweet taste of Muggle drinks. “Or who sent you?”

“I sent myself,” she says primly, taking a sip of her own bottle. “As for where I’m from...”

“Not the Ministry,” he says, as she seems far too young. “And not Hogwarts.” Otherwise, he would have recognized her.

He’s expecting her to mention a different school, maybe. He’s not expecting her to look at him seriously and say, “I did come from Hogwarts, actually. Just not Hogwarts in this time.”

He stares at her. “You mean...”

“Yes,” she says, and what in the bloody _earth?_ “I’m from the future.”

xXx

She’s infuriatingly good at keeping things from him.

The only thing stopping him from hexing her into telling him what the fuck she wants from him is the fact she’ll certainly stop coming if he angers her, and he can’t stand another day of being trapped in that hellhole of an orphanage.

“Haven’t you a job?” he asks her once.

“Nope,” she says, shrugging. “My only job right now is simply to keep you company.”

“To keep an eye on me, you mean,” he corrects. It’s obvious that she’s watching his every move, even though she tries to hide it; he catches far too many glimpses of her eyes darting away.

“I’d rather not think of it like that,” she says easily.

He wishes he was better at Legilimency—then he wouldn’t have to hex her to get her to crack. But the only time he tries it on her, he’s met with immediate mental resistance and a stern, “Don’t _do _that.”

So much for mind-reading.

xXx

The only path left then is to charm her.

Of course, she would be one of the only people he’s ever met who is utterly impossible to charm.

She takes his compliments without batting an eye, merely raises an eyebrow at his attempts to sway her, and damn, it’s as if she knows exactly what he’s trying to do.

That frightens him, if he’s to be honest. It’s not often that he meets someone who can read his true intentions.

Given that he can’t charm her in the usual ways, it’s fortunate then that she’s actually mildly interesting to talk to—at least, he has to admit she’s intelligent.

He’s never before met someone near his age who is so frighteningly good at magic. She’s not as good as him, obviously—definitely not as powerful. But her mastery over magical theory is greater than even most adult wizards and witches he’s run into, not to mention his peers.

“You’ve mastered nonverbal already,” he says after watching her casting a charm to rewarm their drinks without uttering an incantation.

“Yes,” she says. “They teach it in sixth year—or at least, they do in my time.”

“Good,” Tom says—_soon_. “I’m about to go into sixth.”

“You’ll enjoy it,” she tells him, an odd look on her face again. He’s stopped trying to pester her about what those looks mean—he learned early on that she won’t tell him.

Nor will she tell him why she’s here, or why she’s so seemingly fascinated with him. Even more importantly, she refuses to say anything about the future, or what’s come of Tom in her time—and it’s obvious she knows of his existence. Why else would she be here otherwise?

He gets the sense that she’s scared of him, which is definitely interesting, but he’d appreciate it more if only he didn’t think it makes her _less_ likely to spill her secrets.

So he continues to talk with her, again and again sitting in the wizarding pub until the sky begins to go dark.

Sometimes he even enjoys himself.

xXx

It’s raining the first time he kisses her, a mere drizzle, dusting against the Impervius charms as they walk back to the car. It takes her by surprise, he thinks, when he frames her up against the car and leans in.

But she leans in too, unflinching, as their lips meet.

He’d only done it as a means to an end, a last resort, a way to get her to talk.

He hadn’t expected to _enjoy_ it—the feel of her slim body against his, the breathy little sounds she makes, being able to slide his arms around her. Her clothes are damp from the water on the outside of the car, so he takes a breath to spell her dry before kissing her again, hungrily, reveling at the way she melts into him as he slips his tongue into her mouth.

She’s trembling when he lets her go.

“You’re scared,” he says, as she drives him home.

“No,” she refutes. An obvious lie. “Why would I be?”

Tom wishes he knew.

xXx

He didn’t mean to keep kissing her.

But it keeps happening, this damned desire, the force of it stronger with each passing day. He keeps catching himself watching her lips as she talks, eyes drifting down occasionally to her bosom until she lightly smacks his arm with a disapproving _hmph_.

She acts like a prude until he has her under him in the backseat of the car, gasping as he sucks at her neck.

She won’t let him go further than that. Honestly, he’s glad—he shouldn’t _want_ to go further.

He’s never been interested in women, or men for that matter. He doesn’t care about sex—wanking hasn’t failed him yet, and people are too trifling to bother with long enough to fuck.

But she’s mesmerizing.

It’s the thrill of the chase, he tells himself; it’s because she’s keeping secrets. That’s why she’s so alluring.

Except he’s fairly sure it goes deeper than that.

Because when he looks at her, he feels like she _knows_ him.

He doesn’t think she _understands_ him, not quite—she recoils whenever he uses force to get his way in front of her, and he dislikes that so much he’s stopped doing it around her. But she never regards him with shocked disgust, nor with fanatic obsession like some of those who call themselves his followers. Caution, yes, and a bit of pity which he abhors, but she doesn’t react like the others who witness him do such things.

In a way, it’s as if this is what she expects from him.

It’s unsettling.

“I don’t understand you,” he says one evening, a lock of her hair between his fingers. They’re sprawled over the covers of a bed in a room above the pub, a room he’s slowly come to realize is where she’s living for now. “It seems you’ve nothing to do but humor me.”

“Basically,” she says, shrugging one shoulder. She’s tight-lipped as always, so he leans over and kisses her until she’s gasping.

“Someday you’ll tell me why you’re here,” he says, crawling on top of her, nudging open her legs so he can rest between them.

“Someday,” she says, biting her lip and gasping as he slowly rolls his hips against her. “Tom...”

“I know, I know,” he says, and sighs, sliding off of her before she can tell him to.

She’s so _frustrating_. She won’t tell him anything and she won’t fuck him and she’s the first person to ever deny Tom of something he truly wanted.

_No one_ does that and gets away with it.

Not until now.

Sometimes he’s so angry he wants to hurt her. He’s just barely stopped himself from doing so a couple of times, and it’s a testament of how alluring she is—or rather, how alluring her secrets are—that he hasn’t yet done something drastic.

He thinks she might hate him then.

It’s strange. He’s never before cared whether someone hated him or not.

xXx

He can smell the rain through the open window as he undresses her for the first time, the breeze blowing the scent of an afternoon storm across the room.

“I’ll take care of you,” he whispers, even though he’s never done this, never had _reason_ to. Nonetheless, he’s heard enough talk of these things from Rosier and the others that he has some idea of what to do.

He wants to know what she tastes like.

She trembles under his touch as he kisses lower, down her stomach, trembles just like the first night he kissed her.

“You haven’t done this before either,” he says, pressing the words into the soft skin of her bare thigh.

She shakes her head no. “Haven’t had the chance.”

“A shame,” he says, before dipping his head down and pressing his tongue against the hot swell of her. She falls apart under his mouth, his hands, quivering little moans that make him gasp.

Then she puts her mouth on his cock and he sees stars.

This is dangerous, he thinks later, as they dress, as she drives him home, as he watches her discreetly wipe away tears she thinks he doesn’t see.

This is dangerous because he doesn’t have the faintest idea what she wants, and yet somehow, he’s becoming addicted to her.

xXx

“Sometimes I wonder what will happen first,” he says, sucking at her nipple, watching her choke out a moan. “Us fucking, or you finally telling me what you’re doing here.”

“And if neither happen?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him, though the effect is ruined as he slides a hand down to the wetness beneath her panties and she shudders a gasp.

“Well, I suppose I’ll go back to Hogwarts,” he says, and fuck, that’s soon, isn’t it? Just under a month away? He’s lost so much _research_ time, and he nearly starts brooding over it except that she nudges him with her knee and says his name.

“Tom,” she says. “Are you all right? We can stop if you’d like.”

A challenge. “Of course not,” he replies, pressing two fingers inside her, nearly groaning himself at the way she clenches tight and wet and soft around them.

Later, as they lie together half naked, both spent, she says, “I’ll tell you everything soon. Before you go back to school.”

He nods. All of this—_this_—has an endpoint then, doesn’t it?

He’s unnerved to find he feels sad about it.

It’s uncharacteristic of him, but he supposes it makes sense. She’s been the only interesting point in his life for the entire summer. It merely follows that he’ll be unhappy when she leaves.

“Tell me now,” he tries, because it doesn’t hurt to attempt.

She curls into him, shaking her head, some of her hair in his face. “Not yet.”

xXx

“Tom,” she says, when he gets in the car a few days later. “Did you know I’m a Muggle-born?”

His stomach turns. He stops halfway through putting his seatbelt on and stares at her. Then he forces himself to swallow. “I’d suspected it was a possibility.”

“Do you hate me for it, then?” she asks, her eyes dull, and he wonders how she knows of _that_ part of him—he’s been careful never to bring it up.

But for once, the revulsion that starts to build in his chest sickens him.

Hermione, _his_ Hermione, is a Mudblood.

And he wants her anyway.

Slowly, he shakes his head. “No,” he says, even though it goes against everything he’s ever believed. “I don’t.”

xXx

“I have a friend,” she says, sitting across from him at a table at the pub, a muffling charm up around them. “He’s one of my best friends, actually. His name is Harry.”

“Okay,” he says, and really, he’s itching to get her upstairs, but the way she’s saying these words make them sound important. Anyway, since when has he been the type of person to be distracted by something as unnecessary as _sex?_

She’s turned him into a fool.

She bites her lip, looking as if she’s not sure how to continue. Finally, she clenches her hands into fists and looks up at him. “You killed his parents.”

He blinks at her. “Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry?”

Her lips go tight, and she looks like she wants to make a noise of exasperation, but she doesn’t. “They aren’t the only ones you’ve killed in my time.”

He’s not sure what she’s expecting from him. He can’t feel remorse—he can mimic it, of course, but she seems to have a knack for telling when he’s insincere. It reminds him uncannily of Professor Dumbledore, who annoys him simply because he obviously distrusts him. “I’m sorry,” Tom says again, because that’s the only thing he can think to say.

She looks away from him, and for a moment, he thinks she might get up and leave. But she doesn’t. “I know about Myrtle,” she says eventually, looking up at him again. “And the Chamber.”

That makes him freeze. _No_ one knows about the Chamber, not yet at least. He swallows thickly. “Because of the diary?”

“Yes,” she says, nodding slowly.

His Horcrux. He forces his face to remain calm, but inside he feels incredibly uneasy. “What did you do with it?”

“It’s been destroyed,” she tells him matter-of-factly, and he stares at her in horror. “Oh, come off it. You’ve made others, if _that’s_ what you’re worried about.”

“I have?” he says, and his eyes light up, because this is what he’s been working so hard to figure out—“It _works_, then—”

“Yes,” she replies, her eyes shuttering. “It worked.”

Slowly, the excitement fades from his lips. “You disapprove.”

Her mouth works for a moment. “You’re killing people, you’re—you’re literally ripping your soul into _pieces_. Why in the world would I _approve?_”

“Hermione,” he says, leaning forward, feeling perplexed—“Why would anyone care about the state of my soul?”

She blinks, and then she looks down at the table. “I do.”

He’s stunned into silence at that.

xXx

“You don’t love me,” he says one day, presses the words to her hair as they lie together, clothed on top of the covers.

“You don’t love me either,” she says coolly, confirming his own words as true.

He shrugs, not sure how he feels about that. “I’ve never loved anyone.”

“I know,” she says quietly.

Tom rolls onto his back. “That friend of yours—Harry. Do you love him?”

“Yes,” she says, sitting up, looking at him. “I do. But just as a friend.”

“Hm,” he says. He doesn’t get the sense that she’s lying.

She licks her lips, looking away. “But there is someone I love.”

“Who is he?” Tom asks, feeling a strange thrum of jealousy in his chest. He’s never been jealous over a girl before—jealous of power, yes, but not something as silly as romance. It’s rather annoying.

“His name is Ron,” she says, and what a stupid name. “He’s my other best friend.”

“Not boyfriend?” he says, forcing his voice to remain calm.

She shakes her head, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “He doesn’t know.”

Tom has the inexplicable urge to somehow fix the sadness in her eyes. He can’t, obviously—she’s the one who chose to be here.

It’s an odd feeling, realizing he cares about someone’s emotions other than himself.

“Go back to him, then,” he says, probably a bit too sharply, but he’s incredibly frustrated with himself for losing his focus like this. Hermione is an anomaly. He shouldn’t be spending so much energy on her.

“I can’t,” she admits quietly, and he stares at her.

“You don’t know how?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “I think I could figure it out, but.”

He frowns at her. “I thought you were going to leave when I returned to Hogwarts.”

“I can’t,” she says again, looking at him, looking lost. “I just... can’t.”

Tom knows it’s not because she doesn’t _want_ to leave. He stares at her, puzzling through it. “You’re trying to stop me from doing—something. From killing people,” he says eventually, piecing it together. “You’re—_babysitting_ me.”

She shrugs and nods, and suddenly he starts to see why she looked so exhausted when they met—she’s a Mudblood, and she’s come from a world where Tom has gotten all the power he’s ever wanted.

Triumph fills his veins, and he just barely remembers to hide it from her. But then he looks at Hermione again, small and yet so stubborn, and he doesn’t know what to think anymore.

He could hex her now, could kill her if he wanted—he doesn’t need her anymore, after all, since she’s given him the information he so sought after.

But he doesn’t want to.

And fuck, if he doesn’t _loathe_ that.

“So, what—you think that by being here with me, things will change?” he spits at her.

“I don’t _know_, okay?” she blurts out, glaring at him in return. “This was the only option—you were going to kill us.”

He thinks of her, looking scared and trapped, his own wand at her throat—and his stomach rolls. “I won’t kill you in the future,” he says, and means it. “I promise. I couldn’t—you could go back today if you wanted, and I wouldn’t.”

“This isn’t just about _me_,” she mutters solemnly.

Then he understands.

They are fundamentally different people. He’s known that from the beginning, of course, but it’s most apparent now, because she is willing to give up her entire life at a mere chance of making a difference in the lives of others—in the lives of her friends.

“And if I said I wouldn’t kill your friends either?” he asks, and she laughs hollowly.

“Not good enough, Tom.” And fuck, that actually hurts.

“I’m never good enough,” he mutters sharply. “Do you think that’s stopped me?”

She opens her mouth, then clicks it shut again, her lips twisting. “Oh.”

“What?” he asks, confused.

“It’s just...” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

“No, tell me,” he says, sitting straighter.

“That’s all you want, isn’t it? To be good enough?” She squints at him as if she's looking into his very soul—or the pieces of it, that is. “You want to be the most powerful, immortal being just because you think that’s the only thing that will make people respect you?”

“Well. Yes,” he says, a bit dumbfounded if he’s to be honest.

“Well stop it then,” she admonishes, frowning. “You _are_ good enough.”

He blinks at her. He thinks she’s missed the point.

xXx

He’s due back at Hogwarts in less than a week.

“Where are you planning on going?” he asks her.

“I’ll move to Hogsmeade, most likely,” she tells him. “Maybe get a job at one of the shops.”

He’d wondered when she was going to run out of money. Soon, maybe, if she’s considering working. “And you expect me to come visit, do you?”

Hermione shrugs. “I’ll come find you if not,” she says, and he leans over to kiss her temple.

It’s a shame, he thinks, that a witch bright as Hermione is going to have a mere shop job.

“What would you have done with your life?” he asks her, “If you were still in your time, I mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know, there’s so many possibilities,” she says, the familiar spark appearing in her eyes that always does when she talks about magic. “I was looking at the Healer training program, or maybe something in the Ministry.”

He’s taken that from her, he thinks solemnly. Her existence is an aberration in this time—no paperwork, no trace of her ever being alive—except for the fact that she’s here, lying on the creaky pub-room bed.

He sighs, pressing his nose to her hair. “And you won’t go back.”

“No,” she says, her eyes shutting. “I won’t.”

xXx

Rain pounds outside the window the night he pushes inside her for the first time, curses on his breath, her name on his lips.

Afterwards she cries and cries as if she can’t stop.

“Hermione,” he says, pulling her to him, and she’s so fragile in his arms. He could break her so easily.

But he doesn’t want to.

It makes _him_ hurt to see her crying like this, and that notion is so foreign it disturbs him.

“Was it really that awful?” he asks, and that starts her off on a fresh round of sobbing.

“_No_,” she gasps out. “I-it—it was good, Tom, it was—” She dissolves into tears again.

All he can do is hold her until she calms down.

“It was my first time,” she says eventually, muffled against his chest.

“Yes,” he says, because he’d known that, hadn’t he?

“It was...” her words drop off, and she sighs. “I just always thought it would be...”

Oh.

The boy she loves, she means. Not Tom.

Never Tom.

He wants to punch something. Instead he lays her down against the pillow, watching her curl into the fetal position as he dresses.

And then he leaves the room.

xXx

He doesn’t intend to get in the car when she comes to him the next day. The Hogwarts Express boards tomorrow morning—he has packing to do.

But her eyes are red-rimmed, as if she’d cried herself to sleep, and he gets in anyway.

“Go home, Hermione,” he tells her as they walk into the pub, as they climb up the stairs to her room. “Go home,” he says, even as he pulls her clothes off, even as she climbs on top of him and slides onto his cock. “Go h-home.”

“I can’t,” she says, over and over again, as he bucks up into her, as he reaches down to slide a finger back and forth against her clit. “I c-can’t—oh, Tom—”

His mind goes blank as he comes inside of her, gasping, watching as she lets out the smallest of whimpers and comes in return. He rolls them to the side, cleans both of them off with a flick of his wand. “Go home,” he says again, quietly. “Don’t you know I’ll never be enough for you?”

“It’s a possibility,” Hermione says, looking at him honestly, her bare chest heaving still. “But I can still try.”

“And you think it makes me feel better? To be second best?” Tom’s lips thin.

She sighs. “Oh Tom,” she says softly. “You’re not second best, you know.”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course I am. I’m the fucking monster who killed your friend’s parents.”

“No,” she says with a shake of her head, looking up at him, her eyes piercing his very soul. “You aren’t. Not... not yet.”

“How do you know?” he asks, a bit affronted. He’s _powerful_. Everyone around him knows it. And if she thinks she can keep him from his true fate, one in which he has obviously achieved everything he ever dreamed of—

“Because things have already changed,” she tells him.

He stares at her, his gaze slowly hardening. “What?”

She swallows, looking nervous now. “Things have changed—this summer, at least.”

He is trying very, very hard not to convey the current depths of his displeasure. “What changed?”

Hermione’s mouth remains tightly shut, and she crosses her arms around herself. Stubborn bitch.

But he’s going to _make_ her tell him if he has to. He climbs on top of her, trapping her against the bed with his weight. “What. Changed?”

She is trembling beneath him. “Earlier this month,” she says quietly, “Y-you... You were supposed to kill your father.”

His father.

His _family_.

He’s been trying to track them down for fucking _years_.

And she’s kept him from it, kept him from the thing he’s most struggled with—

Fury overtakes him, and he grabs at her neck, fumbling for his wand—he’ll _kill_ her, he _will_—

But her body is frail beneath him. She’s not even struggling, and he stares down at her, not understanding. He thought she would fight.

Her face is turning red.

Slowly, disbelievingly, he lets go.

Immediately she coughs, chokes, her breath wheezing as she roughly pushes him off of her, gasping for air. Merlin, what has he _done?_

For once in his life, he feels truly, genuinely sorry, watching as she swallows repeatedly, as her hands fly to protect her neck. “Tom,” she chokes out, and her voice is scratchy.

He shuts his eyes. “Hermione,” he says quietly. “Go _home_.”

Still, she shakes her head, and all at once he’s angry again.

“You don’t _get_ it, do you?” he erupts, sitting up, glaring at her. “Let me make it clear to you: if you stay here, in this time, I _will_ kill you. It’s not a ‘maybe’. I nearly just did. So go _home_.”

“B-but,” she starts, and she’s crying now, tears streaming down her face. “I _can’t_, Tom, I—w-what if nothing’s changed?”

He feels the ridiculous urge to hold her, but he pushes that away, traps it away in the mental box he reserves for all the rest of his useless feelings. “Listen. You already said things changed, didn’t you?” And then, another truth: “It will not help your cause if you’re fucking dead.”

Her breath stutters. She wipes at her eyes. “I-I...”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” He levels a look at her, and she bites her lip, her eyes going dull.

“Yes,” she murmurs. “I suppose you are.”

He’s finally won, he thinks, as she slides out of bed and begins pulling on her clothes.

But as he dresses alongside her, his feelings are muddled, and for some strange reason it feels like he’s lost instead.

xXx

“Stop,” he says, gesturing at a side road that looms in the distance, not far from the orphanage.

“What?” she asks, eyes distracted as she grips the steering wheel.

“Pull off the road,” he clarifies, and she seems to understand this time, reaching the road and turning down it, ending up in a long stretch of woods.

“There,” he says, gesturing at an empty patch of grass, and she follows his directions and parks.

“What is it?” she asks then. She won’t look at him.

She’s... truly scared of him now, isn’t she?

He thought he’d feel more triumphant about that than he does. Instead he feels regret.

It’s not something he’s ever felt before.

So part of him hates having to do this to her. But she has information he needs, and he needs it _now._ He looks up at her, eyes hard. “Tell me everything about my father.”

He expects resistance, expects her to glare or roll her eyes or refuse.

Instead, to his surprise, she simply begins to speak.

“He shares your name,” she says, turning her head to look out the window, though there’s not much to see considering the cloud cover has made it dark as dusk. “Your mother magically enticed him into a relationship, and the moment she ceased her control over him, he left her. It’s thought she died of heartbreak.”

Heartbreak? What a silly notion—a stupid reason for Merope Gaunt to die.

How pitiful.

“Where is he?” Tom asks then, watching as she shrinks into herself.

“Little Hangleton,” she tells him anyway, without hesitation. At his noise of confusion—why is she now so utterly _willing _to tell him everything?—she shrugs. “You would’ve found out anyway, I’m sure.”

She’s right, of course. Too smart for her own good. He sighs. “Okay,” he says. “We can go now.”

Still, she doesn’t immediately start the car. “I miscalculated, you know,” she says then, finally meeting his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asks, suspecting she’s going to say that she should never have kissed him, should never have come here, should never have attempted to change fate.

But she doesn’t say any of those things. “When I went back in time,” she says instead, “I miscalculated the number of turns—with the Time Turner, I mean.” Ah. Of course that’s how she’d travelled here. She must have used a magically enhanced version, he’d imagine, or else she never would have made it back this far.

“So you didn’t mean to land here—land in this summer?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“I was aiming for summer,” she says—“I wanted to catch you alone.” Smart, she is. “It’s just, I meant to go back a year further.”

“Why didn’t you?” he asks, frowning at her. She could’ve simply done a few extra turns and righted her mistake.

“I didn’t figure out what time I’d landed in until we’d already begun talking,” she explains ruefully. “And by then you already knew I existed. It wouldn’t have worked.”

“Oh.” He nods in understanding. Time is finicky; he’s never bothered to attempt messing with it himself. “Why does it matter? The exact year?”

“Because,” she says, “You’ve already killed Myrtle.”

Of course. “You wanted to save her from the Basilisk.”

“Not just her,” she says, gaze steady as she looks at him. “You too.”

He can’t stop himself from sucking in a breath.

His soul is already split into two now, isn’t it?

She’d been aiming to make him whole again.

Oddly, his throat begins to burn. He doesn’t know what it means, so he tries to ignore it, but the sensation is too strong, too bizarre to overlook.

Instead he leans over and kisses her.

For just a moment, she kisses back. Then she gently pushes him away. “No more, Tom,” she tells him.

“Because you’re about to go back to your_ Ron_,” he surmises sharply, an uncomfortable sense of hurt in his veins.

“No,” she says, sounding frustrated. “It’s—it’s because I don’t want to make it harder to leave than it has to be, okay?”

There’s sadness in her eyes.

She cares for him.

She actually cares for him.

His lip trembles, just a bit. “You must leave,” he reiterates—she can’t change her mind, because Tom knows himself, knows that eventually he’ll get angry, that he won’t be able to hold back from hurting her.

Part of him, the part that’s gone soft, thinks that he couldn’t live with himself after that.

“I’m going,” she says, promises. Tears are leaking from her eyes again as she adds, “But... I’ll miss you.”

If he had a heart, Tom thinks it might have broken right about now.

Fortunately he doesn’t. But that doesn’t save him altogether from the grip of sadness in his throat.

“I am glad to have known you,” he tells her honestly.

“And I, you,” she says quietly, looking away from him.

It must be uncomfortable, he thinks, to feel something for someone who tried to murder her.

She starts the car.

“It’s not as grand a future as you’re imagining,” she tells him, back on the main road, inching closer and closer to the orphanage. “You nearly die several times. You’re barely alive, barely human—you don’t even have a body at one point.” She flicks a glance over at him. “You’re no longer handsome.”

“You think me handsome?” he remarks, and she makes a noise that says he’s missing the point. He knows. He’d done so deliberately. “What nearly kills me?” he asks then.

“That, I won’t tell you,” she says, and they’re close enough to the orphanage now that he couldn’t force it out of her, harm her in any way even if he wanted to. “At any rate, I’m not sure you’d fully understand.”

It doesn’t seem like she’s insulting his intelligence, so he’s left to merely wonder at what she could mean by that.

He supposes he’ll find out.

She pulls into the road near the orphanage where she normally drops him off, pulling off to the side. “Well,” she says, and her eyes are shining. “Goodbye, Tom.”

After a moment of hesitation, he leans over and kisses her again, drinking in the feel of her warmth, the sweetness of her lips. Then he forces himself to stop, to step out of the car, even though she’s not even trying to hide her crying now.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he doesn’t quite know what for—

But he thinks he actually means it.

“Oh, Tom,” she says, laughing softly, ruefully. “It’s not me you should be apologizing to.”

She’s probably right. He sighs. “Goodbye, Hermione,” he tells her, and slowly shuts the door.

He watches her car as he drives off, watches it until it disappears into the distance, even as the first few thick drops of rain start to hit his face.

He checks his watch, thinking of his schedule. His school trunks are already packed, and it’s only late afternoon—if he leaves now, he should make it back in time to catch the train in the morning.

There’s the tiniest whisper of guilt niggling in the back of his brain; it has brown eyes and soft, curly hair.

But he dismisses it.

Rain starts to fall as he turns on his heel, setting off to find the village of Little Hangleton.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3
> 
> ***Domestic Violence warning: there is a scene where Tom chokes/briefly tries to kill Hermione.


End file.
